Birthday Quake

4-30-15

Happy birthday, Ken!!

Yesterday turned out to be one of those super entertaining days where I find pictures of people that make them super happy. Sandy, Ken’s cousin, was the recipient of my photo goodwill. I happened across a pic of her and her folks and posted it to her wall on FB. She was positively giddy, which honestly is the best feeling when you can do that for someone. I found a couple others and all of them were happy making. I told her I would look though the other gobs of photos I have for more of her dad specifically. This put me in my home, sorting through tons of pics. It was awesome! I organized some of them and will need to finish up the rest when I get home today. I found some real gems and was very happy to show the boys random pics they hadn’t seen either. Yay!

Dax went with Ken to his soccer game. Bobby considered going but when he realized he wouldn’t be taking his iPad, he opted to stay home. I was cool with this and I ended up chilling with him on the couch and watched a couple of Blue’s Clues for nostalgia purposes. It was especially entertaining being that I was stoned and Bobby enjoyed all of my silly commentary. It was freaking awesome. Especially at one point when Steve air-bended. Yeah, that happened. But truly, the fun was Bobby and I going all Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Blue. It was well deserved fun at the expense of a classic show from our past.

We have a company meeting (that they have dubbed Townhall meetings. Sigh, it’s a little embarrassing when your company is trying to be hip but failing miserably) today that I have successfully avoided the last few times. I don’t know that I will be as successful today. I probably should go. Sure, free food, kills the last 2 hours of my day, and at least I look cute today.

I was reading a bit on the topic of cannabis for dogs. Apparently it doesn’t have the high, but it calms them. Also it is a great alternative to steroids for increasing their appetite in certain situations. I am considering getting some as it might be interesting to settle Miss Lily a bit, especially with the 4^th of July coming. Although I have kicked around the idea of staying home for the 4^th and throwing a kick ass party that day which would make the dogs happy, I still think I like the idea of anything that would provide comfort to the pups if they are stressed or crazy from something. Plus, how cool would it be to watch some Discovery channel show on dogs with the pups all buzzed?

I am very silly for being excited about this, but dammit, I am ok with this. I found this random pic of my dad’s classmate from like 1953 in which someone had very neatly penciled devil horns and a tiny mustache on him. It made me laugh quite a bit and so I posted this. Sluggo, a long time DJ on KROQ, who I recently friended on FB, not only liked said pic, asked me if he could use it as his profile picture. I am just a simply fan-girl of my radio station and things like this make me giddy.

I am going to attend a funeral of someone I don’t know. Next Friday, a FB friend of mine that I met because she is a fellow cemetery walker, is a mass for her mom who passed away a couple weeks ago. I have not actually met Lisa in person, but she is awesome. She grew up in Torrance and has a lot of similar interests to mine. I feel as though every person who loses their mom should have support during a funeral. It is in Old Torrance and it happens to be the morning after our soccer board meeting, so it will be nice to sleep in a bit and then go the mass. I don’t intend on going to the wake after only because I don’t think it would be appropriate. I do however feel strongly about paying my respects.

Earthquake! It happened like an hour ago, but I think it is worth mentioning one of the benefits to working where I do is that I have been getting de-sensitized to these quakes. Not that there are quakes here, but my desk is next to the window which looks out onto Wilmington Ave which is heavily driven on by the giant semi-trucks that race up and down the street. Those puppies rattle my building to the point where at least once a week I actually wonder if one is about to crash into my building. It is kind of nice to know that the jolt this morning barely registered for me and in all honesty I assumed it was one of those crazy truckers. Neat!

Beware the Dumb

4-29-15

There is a certain satisfaction to completing a Costco run.

It’s nice to have options in the house for dinner (breakfast and lunch as well!). I am actually all anxious to make some of the things I got. We didn’t just get food, either! They had a sale on trees so we were able to pick up a lemon tree and an orange tree, both of which are super happy making. Of course, planting them will be interesting since I am super concerned that Lily will play retarded gardener and dig them both up. Stupid dog.

The Costco trip was good because my day was craptastic before that point. I was tired due to being woken up at about 2:30 to tons of fire trucks racing down our street. There was a big fire at one of the homes in the trailer park. We could actually see the flames from our bedroom window. The firemen had to actually knock on the doors of the homes across the street from us to get them out of the house since the fire was so close. We drove through the trailer park yesterday to look and boy, what a shame. The place was destroyed. From what the paper said, there was no one in the place (and no one next door since the trailer had an eviction notice on it) and the fire was difficult to deal with because the owner was a hoarder. We saw all the debris tossed to the side. It was crazy. I am glad no one got hurt.

Sadly, I get up at 3:50 normally, so being jolted awake only about an hour before you have to get up truly sucks beans. I looked out the window a bit and considered going out to talk to our neighbors like Ken did, but I opted to try and rest for that time. When I did wake up to the alarm, you could still smell the smoke, but luckily it was all done. I was happy that the boys didn’t suffer too much from all the commotion. Dax was sitting up in bed when Ken checked in on them, but he has no memory of this, nor does he remember the conversation he had with Ken. Clearly the kid will be a sleep talked like his mother.

Work started ok since I kicked some reporting ass, but then I had to start talking to people and I was appalled at the level of stupidity I was dealing with. Seriously, I worry about humanity when seemingly intelligent people are that clueless. I transmit invoices to a couple of customers, and one of the customers was not receiving the transmissions correctly. This was due to the way the data is being populated in the system before I push the button to send. The programmer has already indicated it was an issue, and not something I was doing wrong. Yet she didn’t want to fix it and wanted me to deal with it. I emailed her boss, the VP of IT and explained that AR shouldn’t be involved in a programming issue and he actually said that it was not IT’s problem. Sigh. Sometimes the dumb hurts my brain.

Between that and the dealings with other morons, I left work frustrated with humanity. Thankfully I was able to vent a bit with Stephanie when I got home. Woo! I felt bad since I kept her from work for a bit, but even though she lives with us right now, I don’t always get to hang out with her. It was a good bit of frustration vomit.

Today looks to have far less drama and anger. I am anticipating minimal work stress and this afternoon I am likely to laugh a lot since my folks are coming by around 2. They have things for the boys for barter day at school, but they come by early enough to visit with me and my dad will partake in my offers of chemical debauchery. Always a fun time! Also, Dax is crazy excited to go with Ken this evening to his soccer game. Dax has been asking to go with him to watch again for a while, but most of Ken’s games have been too late. Tonight’s game is at 8, so I am happy to allow him to tag along. Apparently Bobby is going, too, so I will be able to crawl into bed early and get some extra snooze time. Yay!

Now I just need to get through the next 6 hours of my work day since that is the only thing between me and chilling at my fab home. Wish me luck!

Stop assuming the worst

4-27-15

Hello, my name is Gena and I am a recovering helicopter parent.

I didn’t plan it when I got pregnant. I always hoped to be one of the chill moms, the ones that could easily drop their kid off with a sitter while I still flitted about, doing my own thing. But I will tell you, for the first 4 years of being a mom, I was anything but chill.

I worried about them in ways I am almost embarrassed to admit. I watched them like a hawk in public and studied parenting manuals as if I was looking to get a doctorate in the subject. I knew every trend, I knew every stepping stone for proper development and I was a force to be reckoned with during this time. I was the crazy mama who cried for hours when she found out daycare gave my older son, Bobby, a banana for the first time because not only did I think it was too early for solid foods, I wanted to be the one to happily watch his first interaction with it.

Despite my early hang-ups, I grew with my boys. Dax, my younger son certainly helped me in a crash course of what I needed to worry about and what I needed to just let go. He was a daredevil from day one and I honestly worried for a while the child services was sure to come get him with how many times he managed to hurt himself. We joked that we had one of those punch cards at the ER and we almost had enough visits to get the next one free. None of these injuries or sickness related visits were life threatening. A fever here, a bump on the noggin there. All of these were simply growing pains and with each incident, I got stronger. I could laugh at many of them. It didn’t mean I was callous to any suffering on the part of my children, but I also recognized it was not my negligence that caused these things.

Bobby is now 10 and Dax is 8. They walk to school by themselves. They have walked to the park by themselves. I have been leaving them at home for periods of time for a couple of years now. They know how to use the phone. They know how to facetime me. They know the names of our neighbors (and not just the ridiculous nicknames I have given them all). These boys are robust. They know the right answers on what to do if there was a fire. We have had long and enlightened conversations about every disaster that might occur. They are well educated on real life, which is something I can’t say about a lot of other kids I have dealt with.

This morning I read yet one more article about situations in which moms were hauled off by the police because they left their child in the car by themselves for 5 minutes. Are you kidding me with this? When you read the details of each account, it is downright appalling how insane the charges brought against these moms are. Endangerment? Really? One mom had left two kids in the car for 10 minutes in mild temperatures, with a phone, locked doors and windows down enough to provide additional air flow. These kids were not left in a war zone. They weren’t given explosives or matches or machetes. They were in a parked car, surrounded by busy-bodies. Oh, wait, that is pretty dangerous. Other people, the ones who think they are saving a life by calling the cops are the real danger out there.

I have stepped in only once when I thought another child was in danger. It was when a dad physically threw his son into a lawn chair on the soccer field. Not one other parent stepped in on that day. This child was actually harmed, yet no one did a damn thing. I did. I stepped in as if they had slapped my child. I wasn’t having this kind of behavior around not only my own children, but the boys on the team that I had almost come to think of as my own.

So why is it that this was an acceptable practice? Why is it that one child, being tossed around like a rag doll is an ok thing to do, but allowing a couple of kids to walk to the park negligence? Where is the rationale in all of this? Oh wait, that’s right, there isn’t.

Oh, but it takes a village to raise a child, right? Grownups from this so called “village” are just making sure kids left alone are safe. I will tell you right now, kids alone are often so much safer than the ones with parents who are awful to them. No one steps in when there is actual danger, only perceived issues. It makes our “village” flawed and the real danger.

If you see a child being left in the car, think before you freak out. Look around. Check the surroundings. If you are truly worried because it’s 100 degrees out, perhaps check to see if this is a kid who knows how to open the door to the car. If it looks as though the kid is juggling knives while at the park alone, sure, I think then perhaps you can step in. That being said, see if perhaps the knives are in fact Nerf products. Don’t call 911 simply because you feel that kids need more boundaries. Most of all, talk to other people! If you see a parent who has done something that looks questionable, maybe approach them after the fact and nicely strike up a conversation. I can assure you, if someone came up to me after seeing me leave Bobby in the car this weekend for 3 minutes as I ran in to return the Redbox movie I had, I would love to have a conversation with them. I would love for them to ask my son if he felt like he was in danger. Go ahead, ask him what he would do if someone approached him. Do some research people. Don’t always assume the worst.  

This isn't a dream

4-27-15

I would have hoped that with a weekend full of both hard work and time to relax that this morning I would be a little more awake.

Sadly, this is not the case. The past two nights did not provide any rest whatsoever and I feel very tired. It’s a real shame, too, since Friday night I slept hard, which was great for the work I had planned for the day. The side of the house required attention and I was ready!

I evicted tons of spiders and at one point discovered the residents of out tarp covered crap must have included a possum or large rat based on the droppings. Bleah. I suppose I should just be happy that I only found the poo since those possums might have stolen my soul if they made eye contact with me.

In a strange twist, I was less upset at much of the stuff under there having been ruined. It made for easier clean up when you knew all of it just went right into the trash can. I cleared out quite a bit until said trash cans were buckling under the pressure of the quantity of debris I was shoveling in to them. I was pleased, though, because the hard work paid off in the form of not only half the stuff going away, but I also managed to move some things that were visible by neighbors to the back and make the side of the house that people see look nicer.

It was chilly much of Saturday morning as I worked, which was awesome. The forecast indicated cold, but I was surprised at the rain that showed up when the boys and I went out for a couple of errands. It was rainy when we stopped at the Toyota fields where Ken, Jimmy and Denise were at. We visited with them for a bit and Dax became enthralled with one of the games. I seriously need to get that kid on a year round team.

I was pleased that I also managed to clean much of the house and get a nice fire started when we got back. It meant that when Ken got home we could watch Thor: The Dark World, which was required viewing before this weekend’s big release of Age of Ultron. Woo!

Sadly, my sleep that night didn’t come in a restful sense. Ken and Dax headed out to the tournament at 6:15, and I found myself awake by 6:30. I could complain that it meant that I didn’t get my full weekend relax time, but I was instead rewarded with an hour long chat session with Mr. Bobby who got up at the same time and opted to come hang out with me in the bed. When I am sleeping in by myself in the bed, I usually wake with at least 4 out of 6 cats. Tonks still is reluctant to come into that situation, and Lucy is wherever Bobby is. With Bobby on the bed, it meant 5 cats were hanging with us, showing the true animal gene my kid inherited. The cats trust him just as they trust me. Even Tonks was hanging out in the hallway, gazing into the bedroom, trying to will herself to come in. She did manage to come hang out on the bed soon after we got up, but she also allowed me to clean the bedroom without running away, so this is progress.

Bobby and I chatted about all kinds of various topics, which was really cool. It is times like these that a parent will totally cherish forever since they are rare and become even more so as they age.

We hung out at home for a bit and then headed out to go return the movie and wander Target for a bit. He insisted we buy a new beach ball for Dax, which seemed super fun to me. We went to the fields since I knew Dax wouldn’t want to be there all day. We happened to show up right when he was going to have Ken call me to come get him. Dax thought it was rather awesome that I could read his mind like that.

We went home for a couple hours and Bobby played some GTA. I really don’t know how I feel about this game. On one hand, it is so obviously fake and cheese-tastic. On the other hand, I don’t really like that a good chunk of the game is spent running around town shooting people just to get $10 from each of them. I still am watching to see if any of this game play will affect how he acts in real life (no, I am not concerned he will shoot me) and have told him that if he starts talking like the people in the game I will pull the plug so fast he won’t even know he had the game. I don’t want to be one of “those” parents, but at the same time, I want to be realistic.

We went back to the field in the afternoon to watch a game and watch Ken ref. I was able to help a bit by handing out medals, which was fun. Dax got to watch more soccer. Boy that kid loves soccer.

Last night, as I was first falling asleep, I found myself struggling once again with restful sleep. I know Ken woke me up at one point, mid crazy dream. I have vague recollection of being shot out into the ocean. It was not cool. My hopes is that tonight I can get some real sleep so I can come into work not feeling like it is a dream.

I have combined some hair color with some conditioner in the hopes to prevent fading with applying some color with every shower. I will be curious if it actually does anything. The color I use isn’t exactly super chemically strong. But I suppose if I am always conditioning my hair with some purple, it may replace some of the purple that goes down the drain.

Trusty is out for the day, which helps my foggy brain out tremendously. I have spreadsheets to prep for the month end reports tomorrow and just some general maintenance so it will be nice to not have to worry about any retarded questions he may have for me.

In a totally random excitement, I discovered one of my favorite lipsticks that I own works great with the purple hair. Woo!

Ok, time to be productive. 

Purple

4-24-15

I wonder how long I would be able to sleep under my desk before someone noticed.

Ok, I am not nearly as tired as I thought I would be. We actually got home at a reasonable time after the movie. Granted, the movie destroyed me. I didn’t plan on the plethora of tears that would dehydrate me and render me spent. I don’t think most of the theater did, either. Even the boys were crying! This is a testament to the quality of the film. I’ll admit I was concerned the movie would be a bit preachy what with some of the central themes being religion. I joked with Jimmy before the flick about how I didn’t expect too much from it because of this. I did also hear him laugh at me in the middle of the movie when a central character made a crack to a priest about his “imaginary friend”. Yeah, that happened and quite honestly, it was the way they handled the fine line between faith in a god and confidence in one’s self that kept me riveted.

I am happy that this evening has no scheduled events which would prevent my melting into my couch. I have full intentions of making good use of my Netflix subscription and my comfy sweats. I know that tomorrow brings some hard work as I am going to clean the side of the house. I figure Ken will be working the tournament while I work the house. It will mean we both can be crumpled messes come Saturday night. Yay!

Ken colored my hair last night, which makes me all happy and purple. As much as I fanaticize about cutting my hair, having the longer locks with this shade is kind of fun. My intention for the next round is to put blue on the faded parts with the purple still intact at the bottom. It will be hopefully a fun combo of color and make for awesomeness.

Bobby has his I think 5^th field trip of the year today. It is once again a fairly close location and I know Ken considered going with them. When we looked it up, I noted a Civil War museum not far from it which intrigues me. I am tempted to go check it out. Perhaps today I will spend some time researching it.

The other research topics of late have included some drought resistant hedge style plants. We had planned on bamboo around the backyard wall in order to keep the one neighbor from having to see us in our backyard. However, with California in yet another serious drought, it seems irresponsible to plant something requiring that much water. So instead we are looking into other options. Another part of this is the possibility of fake grass. I have never been a huge fan, but with recent improvements to the quality, it would actually not be a bad thing. It would make the yard look nice all the time, cut back on water, and maintenance would be hopefully minimal. Of course we have to consider the dogs, and by dogs I mean the one that feels the need to provide us with the start of an in-ground swimming pool when she is left outside for any period of time. Miss Lily is a digger, which isn’t a huge deal when dealing with real turf, but I am thinking it would truly suck to come home to the fake stuff rolled off to the side because of her antics. One of the companies I looked into indicated that they had deterrents that would prevent this sort of happening. Hopefully when we truly decide, we can find something that allows for Lily to not derail our investment.

I am proud to say I have already made it through 3 hours of my scheduled day. I am hoping the additional 5 hours flies by. It helps that the girl next to me is out. Recently she has taken to pouring an entire bottle of perfume on every morning before she arrives at work. Although the scent is not bad, it is overwhelming and hard to take in that quantity. I can tell where she has walked in the building based on the signature scent cloud she has left behind. Of course, I should be grateful that she did have this odor the other day. When I came in Monday morning, I was pretty sure someone had let a couple of skunks loose in the building. I know that we have a variety of critters right outside. I have actually crossed paths with a baby skunk in the parking lot and the other day I saw a Mama Soul Stealer (that would be possum to those of you who don’t know) with her litter of babies on her back. I would not have been surprised to walk around to my desk to see a skunk answering email. I suppose this is a lesson in being thankful for things as they could always be worse.

In some ways, it is a shame to not be able to see into the future since sometimes I really wonder what it is that the boys will say when someone asks them when they are in their 30’s about their mom. Will they say I was a crazy lady? Will they remember the purple hair as an oddity or just the norm? Will they question some of my parenting methods? Will they go all Alex P Keaton on me and slam my liberal agenda? The knowledge hopefully would not influence me in a negative fashion in the idea of changing who I am, but it would be cool to know how to plant happy memories for them.

Ok, time to wrap this up as I have clearly ventured into crazy territories. Ha! Happy weekend y’all!

Still back!

4-23-15

I promised I would write.

Despite my claims yesterday that homework has been better, for some reason it was a distraction day. Luckily it happened on a Wednesday since it meant we had an extra hour of time to work with. It was still frustrating, though, because I had hoped to run get hair color once homework was complete, but they took so long I couldn’t get out to do this. Hopefully this afternoon I can make that part happen.

This evening we have a movie screening we are going to. The company that produced the movie Little Boy approached AYSO’s national office and offered free screenings to regions who were interested. Of course I jumped all over this. What resulted was me holding 180 tickets to a movie! Thankfully, Ken went to a tournament meeting this week and was able to distribute most of them to teams in our region. The rest went out to most of our board, which means it will be a fun group of people tonight. It looks to be super heavy in religion, but that doesn’t mean it will be bad. I like the idea of watching something like that if only to gain insight into the idea of faith.

With the movie to look forward to, it means today’s work will be even more boring than normal. It also means that homework will be more stressful as I try to whip them to get things done. The good news is that many of my main chores are done for the week. I have completed most of the laundry and even got a lot of the trash from the back yard put out for pick up today. With Ken gone much of the weekend helping out Fred with the Founders’ Cup Tournament, I am alone with the boys at the house. My hopes are to work on projects including going through all of the baby stuff and post online to get rid of it. It will clear out some much needed space in the garage and maybe make a few bucks.

Well that was odd. It always amuses me when I can surprise people with the knowledge I possess about random thing. I was in the lunch room when a guy from the shop and our safety director were discussing e-cigarettes. The shop guy was having issues finding places that sold them as most of the places he knew of kept closing down and going out of business. So I pointed out that the market was flooded, and that even places like gas stations now sell them, which means people don’t need to go to specialty shops anymore. I then said that if you really wanted to find a better selection, they would need to hit up actual smoke shops that are not just vape specific. I pointed out that the places that will succeed will be ones that don’t pigeon hole themselves. The looks on their faces was priceless. They were impressed but in shock at the wealth of insight I had about everything from the illicit behavior of teenagers to the recommendations of locations to hit up. Yeah, I love it when I can be mysteriously awesome.

Return of the Gena

4-22-15

I haven’t written in a while.

Ok, sure, I posted something yesterday, but it was in the same vein of the last couple posts more than a month ago. I wanted my writing to be more polished in the idea of choosing a topical subject to dive into head first where I could pick it apart. I like doing that and I thought that it would make me a better writer over all.

Yes, this may be the case. I know that I actually would spend time doing some research on topics I chose and I really tried to make it good. This is all fine until you run out of topics. Sure, I can talk a whole lot about just about anything, but sometimes I just wasn’t feeling it. So I would close the word document and not write that day. The problem with this is that every day it became easier and easier to not write. Then, when I got a hankering to just talk about the weekends’ events, I remembered my plan and wouldn’t write anything. It was kind of sad, really.

So I think that this was clearly a misstep on my part. One of the things that has been therapeutic in general to me was the fact that I could type out tons of things, some interesting and some not so much, and it was no longer just bouncing around in my head. It was my release valve and I truly have neglected it.

It is with this realization that I am jumping back in. I need to write about how homework has been less of a headache. I have to write about the movie screening tomorrow night. I need to write about soccer registrations. I need to write about our trip to the Compound. I need to write about not picking my fingers. All of this needs to be documented. Mundane, silly, boring life, that ultimately should be captured in a Word document for all of posterity. How else will my boys be able to have me committed without proper evidence of my insanity?

Today I don’t know that I will dig in at length. I have to pace myself lest I get overwhelmed again and stop for a longer period next time. So please enjoy my return to the forum that is better than Prozac. Happy reading!

Friend Zone

4-21-15

What if my boys don’t find friends?

Yes, this may be a silly question. I know they play fine with kids and I have heard them both declare best friends in the past, but it doesn't mean that they will find the Marshall to their Ted. It is one of the things that fuels a real amount of stress in me being how much I am heavily dependent on social interaction, despite my declarations of shyness.

The worry hit me when my mom mentioned both boys saying that everyone in their class hated them. This is a statement I know every child probably utters at some point in their adolescence. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t something that is a red flag in my mind.

Bobby had an incident last week in which a couple of kids in his class were being, well, kids. They were being cruel in things they were saying to him, which from what I gathered later included jabs at the amount of cats we own. Even though I explained to Bobby that if his friends want to call me a crazy cat lady, I am not offended, it doesn't mean he wasn't offended. The taunting resulted in tears and luckily one of the nice boys in the class went for help so as to stop the barrage of assholery.

The school carnival was on Friday, and as much as I enjoy experiencing these things with both of them, I really wanted them to find their people and make memories with them. Bobby couldn't find his best friend till later in the evening, and even then he was reluctant to hang out with him because his friend was with another classmate. Dax only wanted to hang out with Bobby, which may be cute, but what happens when Bobby isn't around?

I was a shy kid, and although I got along fine with my peers, I didn't have my close circle until the 7^th grade. I had the people I played with at recess, and happily still keep in touch with all of them, but I recognize they were not the ones I would turn to in real times of need. They were not the ones in which I would declare BFF’s nor would they even be ones I saw in high school. This fact certainly gives me some hope that both boys will find their niche at some point in the near future.

That being said, what if they don’t?

Sadly, my image of how friends should be often turns to something like Friends the show. I have always idealized the relationship dynamics that I thought would be in my life. When I was young, I remember reading Beverly Cleary books and Judy Blume books, hoping someday I would get to go to the soda fountain with my peeps. Ok, sure, the soda fountain wasn't exactly realistic what with it being the 80’s, but the concept was still there. My friends would be my surrogate family during my youth and hopefully then grow old with me.

This did not happen. There are many people that I have kept close, but for the most part, any person who has had a place of prominence in my life has drifted away due to geography, arguments, and just the growing up process. I have gathered new people along the way, but even some of them have fallen to the wayside. There is a large part of me that knows this isn't a big deal, and in fact, pretty common. There is the other part of me, the one that is super loud and insecure, that is convinced it is my fault and there is a fear that more people will leave.

So when I watch my boys interact with the kids in their class or the members of their soccer team, I find myself over analyzing every word spoken or every laugh that comes from their mouths. I know kids can be total bastards at times, so my concerns are real. However, I pride myself in working towards allowing the boys to find their own path and to not coddle them too much when it comes to their relationships with other people. Sure, I joked with Bobby after the teasing incident in class that I would gladly spit on his classmate’s cupcake or purposely make her lose when she was at our game booth at the carnival. He chuckled, but in some ways, I wonder if I shouldn't have said anything. I wanted to help him open up and talk about how it made him feel, but by offering up such childish solutions even in a comedic fashion, I may be hurting his progress with this.

I told the boys that they could have an end of the school year party. I said we could invite all their friends, get the pool set up and have a whole day event of playing. Both seemed reluctant to accept the offer, which made me wonder if it was concern over people actually showing up, or if they just don’t want the hassle of a huge social event. I understand this simply because I have the same anxiety when I arrange a party. Who will come? Will they like my food? Is my house clean enough? Are they just humoring me? Even though the boys may think I am a confident person, they don’t know the inner storm I fight daily.

At this point, I really need to just be patient. They are good kids and someone will become their bestie and this will all be a mute-point. But until then, you can be assured that every day I see them on their way home from my front door, sometimes with other kids, sometimes alone, I will watch, crossing my fingers that I am just the crazy mom who freaks out internally over silly things.